Medical Practice: Business Or Profession? Dr. Ankala Subbarao on Docplexus Recently the MCI has taken several actions against advertisements by doctors, sponsorships by pharma companies etc. We can not challenge the highest authority on the land and there is no question of anybody disobeying the laws of the land. But surely we can make our voice heard! The tragedy of a Medical professional is that he has to go through years of study, entrance tests, more study, more exams and more and more entrance tests till he gets his PG degree or sometimes superficiality degree. Many doctors prefer to be independent and self employed and are inclined to open their own small clinics and build small hospitals on their own. The moment a hospital is built, the rents are doubled (if the building is rented) or the property tax trebled (if the building is owned by the doctor). The electricity people collect twice the domestic charges. You have to pay Professional tax, ensure that your employees are covered under ESI and contribute to Provident Fund. In other words, we are treated by the Government just like they treat any other business company. Then why this discrimination against business promotion. Our business is to save lives or limbs. It is an honorable business indeed although I would not call it Noble because we are doing all this for money. All businesses survive on promotion to withstand the tough competition in the market place. Marketing is part of any business. I feel that MCI should kindly reconsider the decision before banning promotion of any type for hospitals as long as it is ethical and part of well entrenched methods of marketing. If a doctor establishes a hospital in a town, he can not expect patients to come on their own. He needs to market himself or herself. For this he has to resort to marketing, which can not be itself a crime as long as unethical methods like fee splitting, paying cuts and percentages and promoting quacks are avoided. Let us fervently wish that our tiny voices unite and reach the powers-that-be and make MCI revise its decision to ban any type of promotion by the Medical Profession.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 03:53:05 +0000
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